how much power do i need?

[Stotland]

hi all.
im planing on buying myself a new system:
Q6600
2GB of ram 800mhz
2 160GB Sata Drives
Asus P5N-D motherboard with SLI
8600GTS

,and the question is...... how much power do i need for it?
do i need to look for a power supply with SLI support?
how much power exacly? 550,650,750?

im planing to use that second SLI slot in the future.

thanks guys

 

[Tech]

Unfortunately I cant help you on the SLI side of your question but if you want to know which sized power supply to buy a good place tro start would be to add up the wattages of everything you want to plug into your new PSU and add a little extra for the sake of longevity.
Generally speaking buying a larger PSU is a good idea as you won't max it out generally giving the component a longer life, plus giving you extra watts for any new components :)

 

[Big B]

I would start by looking at power supplies listed on SLI Zone, specifically those certified for SLI for whatever cards you're planning on running in such configuration.

Wattage is not the best way to determine how good a power supply is as there are three different voltages in use from a power supply: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V. More and more components are shifting over to the +12V, and you'll need a power supply that's heavier on that rail, and 30A would be the bare minimum I'd start with for a single rail, or 2 x 18A if multiple rails.

Look at companies like these:

Antec
Corsair
Enermax
PC Power & Cooling
OCZ
FSP/Fortron/Sparkle
Thermaltake
Seasonic
Silverstone